by Kevin Fox
My breath was coarse and coppery as my lungs spasmed from the chill in the air and arms and face were bleeding from where branches snapped, whipping wet and cold, stinging sharply. Thorns dug in and pulled loose as I ran. There was a reason these woods weren’t well explored. City kids have a healthy fear of animals that lurk, urban legends, and clay pits that devour children whole, not to mention ticks and poison ivy. Why the fuck would any Call of Duty-playing bad ass risk getting his pristine sneakers dirty to get Lyme disease or have poison ivy complicate his acne-ravaged face?
Up ahead, I could see flashes of pale flesh as someone ran through the trees. Breathless sobs came from somewhere deeper within the woods and I slowed to try and pinpoint where they were when I heard, far-off:
“Collins! We got runners! Armed—” Burke yelled, cut off by two gunshots, a deeper, heavier sound than the sharp report of his nine-millimeter Glock.
Someone was shooting at him.
I ran, outpacing my own breath as it mingled with the thick fog. Going through my head were the horrors I’d carried with me since childhood – dreams of running through these woods, lost for days, and the stories of the people the woods had claimed, like Judy Somerville, and Holly Ann Hughes. In my mind they had all suddenly come to life, in the place I had visited in all my nightmares.
I ran straight toward the gunshots and screams anyway, wondering the whole time why I was being so stupid. Nature wires us to flee danger, and of all people I should’ve known better. How did I get so screwed in the head that I was running toward it?
I reached a swampy clearing just as another scream tore the night open and distracted me. I tripped, hurtling forward, catching myself as I fell over something sharp and metallic –
– Both of my wrists shot through with pain as my full weight collapsed onto them and my body sank into cold mud. Cursing under my breath, I winced in pain and opened my eyes to see that I’d tripped over some discarded bumper of an old abandoned car or – a small plane. It was half-buried under swampy mud and clay, but I recognized the broken shaft of a propeller that had been buried by the impact of a crash. Only Hurricane Sandy had been powerful enough to call up the wreckage from its grave.
If I hadn’t run smack into it, I never would have seen it. Not even in broad daylight. The brush was too thick, and it was buried too deeply, half in the water and half out. Since the woods I was in were on preserved acres, no one was allowed to cut back the native plants anymore. Without the hurricane, it would have stayed buried forever – but it was here – and always had been.
I barely had time to register any of this. The screams of the young woman were now less than twenty feet away, coming from the opposite side of a small rise, covered with thick underbrush.
“No! Please. No—” she was muttering, cutting herself off with her own scream. I pulled out my gun and climbed up the small rise, quietly pushing back branches and sticker bushes, grateful that her screams had covered the sound. When I reached the top, I saw a husky Russian manhandling Alina, trying to shove dirt and leaves in her mouth to shut her up. Her shirt was torn open and he seemed to be getting a cheap thrill out of the way he touched her, but she was fighting. I should have shot him right then, but I froze for a moment, paralyzed by the nightmare of a time where I had no gun, just a tire iron…
…He was too focused on the girl, kicking and clawing as he pushed her flat on her back in the mud, straddling her, ripping her shirt and backhanding her across the face.
“How do you like that, little bitch? Teach you to make me run,” he growled as he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her face close to his. His voice was muttered and indistinct in the rain, something about it different, maybe foreign.
“…break you in. Make you worthless,” the man muttered, going on as he ripped open the young girl’s shorts. That’s when I saw the scar on her thigh, so similar to my own, a spiraling curve the size of a half dollar, shaped like the coils of an old car’s cigarette lighter. The only difference was that hers was fresh, raised and red, as if it were brand new and barely healed…
Chapter Fifteen
…I shook off the memory of the dream. Dreams weren’t going to help Alina. My gun was. I raised it and pointed it at the Russian, center-mass.
“Let her go,” I said simply, allowing my Glock to say the rest. The Russian turned, putting his forearm across Alina’s throat to keep her quiet as he looked up at me and smiled.
“Nyet. Fuck off,” he said calmly. I almost pulled the trigger out of spite. I should have. Instead I did as I was trained to do.
“I’m an NYPD detective, and trust me, I’ll drop you in a heartbeat.”
“But not me…” I heard off to my left. I didn’t move my gun, but glanced over to see another Russian holding a pistol. It was pointed right at my center mass and his hand was rock steady.
Fuck me.
“Drop the gun, Detective,” he told me in an accent that grated on every nerve I had. I hesitated and he turned, reaching behind him to pull Dariya out of the shadows by her long mane of auburn hair. She was barefoot, in shorts and a T-shirt. Her face was bruised, and it was clear that he didn’t catch her without a struggle. It struck me then that if her hair was just a shade lighter, she could be an older version of the girl from my dreams.
“He’ll kill you if you drop it. Shoot him—” I heard a hoarse voice say from the shadows. Looking closer, behind Dariya and deeper in the shadows was Rigan, kneeling, lip bleeding, and one eye beginning to go black.
“I’ll kill her if you don’t. I won’t ask again,” the second Russian said without raising his voice, moving his gun off of me to Dariya’s head.
Motherfucker.
I didn’t move, talking to buy myself some time to think.
“Where’s Markov?” I asked.
“He has Anton—” Rigan started to say, but was cut off as the Russian holding Dariya lashed out, kicking back, catching Rigan with the heel of his boot just above her left ear.
“Shut up,” he mumbled as an afterthought.
“Will you just shoot him already?” the first Russian grunted, pulling Alina tight against him to stop her from struggling.
“Who’s Anton?” I asked, my finger tightening on the trigger, trying to gauge if I could shoot them both before Dariya caught a bullet to the temple.
“The boy from the boat,” Rigan said. This time the kick missed her, but that pissed off the Russian even more.
“I said shut up! Drop it now or I’ll shoot the little bitch,” he said, twitching the gun to one side and pulling the trigger, deafening Dariya, causing her to drop to the ground, whimpering. It wasn’t worth the risk. I dropped the gun, tossing it toward the Russian with Alina, hoping that it would distract him enough to get him to stop groping her.
He didn’t flinch. The second Russian grinned.
“Smart man. You just saved the little one’s life. Too bad that now you’ll lose your own.” He pointed his gun back at me again.
All I could think was ‘you gotta be fucking kidding me’. I was going to die in the same woods where I almost died all those years ago. How fucking stupid. I kept my eyes open, staring him down, mostly so I didn’t piss myself. I saw his arm tense and then –
– I heard the shot, but felt nothing…
The Russian’s head snapped back as a flap of skin and bone tore free from his forehead, blood spraying out onto the wet ground, all over Dariya and Rigan. It took me a full second to realize that the sound came from the wrong direction. By the time I located it, three more shots had been fired – all toward the Russian groping Alina.
It was Kat – firing at the first Russian, who used Alina as a human shield.
“Kat! Stop! You’ll hit her—”
– But Kat was emptying the clip – an excellent shot, she missed Alina and clipped the Russian, but not enough to stop him. He pulled Alina back into the woods, returning fire. I raced to grab my own pistol, but by the time I looked up, the Russian and Alina were gone.
&
nbsp; Dariya was hysterical, sobbing and trying to wipe off the blood, but Rigan was calm as she bent down to pick up the second Russian’s gun.
“I’m going after them. Are you going to try to stop me?” Rigan asked.
“No. Go.” I told her, somehow sure in that moment that she could handle herself and that she was a partner I could trust. Rigan didn’t hesitate, just pulled Dariya up by the arm and propelled her into the woods – like a modern Diana going hunting.
I turned back to Kat, who was furious, ejecting the magazine to reload. I walked toward her slowly.
“Give me the gun, Kat.” Kat looked up at me, keyed up and angry.
“I had to shoot,” she muttered, turning to look at the dead Russian whose skull had been ripped open. “I’m out of practice. I was aiming for his heart,” she explained, looking at the top of his head, decimated by the wound.
“Good thing. If you aimed for his head, we’d both be dead… Just give me the gun, Kat.”
She did, barrel end first, like a pro. I took out another magazine in and chambered a round, then quickly fired it into the ground in order to get the gun shot residue on my hand, then I gently took her face in my hands, making her look me in the eye so that we’d be clear when we were questioned.
“Listen closely. This is important.” Kat nodded. I’d have to settle for that. “The gun is registered in my name. I have the GSR on my hands.”
“So do I.”
“You’ll get it off. I shot him. Understand?”
“But—”
“Don’t argue. Just go and use the mud and water to clean your hands.” Kat nodded, reluctantly, and went to the nearest water, sticking her hands in as I went on. “I’m leaving to follow them. I want you to stay here until someone comes. Don’t answer any questions from anybody. Just tell them I shot the guy. You were a witness, that’s all. Do you understa—”
I stopped, spinning around and lifting my gun as I heard a branch snap behind me, and turned to draw down on – Burke. He looked ragged and pale, his clothes torn and mud splashed up to his knees. As he saw my gun his hands went up.
“Goddamn, Collins. What the hell?” he asked, eyes going from me to the Russian, whose skull was in pieces like a jigsaw puzzle on the ground.
“He drew down on me. I had no choice. The other one did a runner with Rigan Kelly and the two girls. We have to go,” I told him, moving in the direction they’d fled, hoping to distract him from this crime scene. No such luck.
“Where’s his gun?” Burke asked, kneeling over the body. I froze, taking a beat to make sure that whatever story I was about to tell would remain consistent.
“That badass chick took it,” Kat answered before I could. Burke glanced at her, and then back at me, ignoring Kat as if she was just another piece of evidence.
“Who the fuck is she and what’s she doing here?”
I shrugged, buying time to come up with a story, and then went with the first thing that I thought of. “I don’t know. She’s stoned or something. Heard screams and wandered in from the street.”
“Dude got shot,” Kat muttered, playing along.
“I see that,” Burke responded, taking her in critically, suspicious.
“It was like boom. And then blood and… dead. Dude’s dead.” Kat went on with a dazed look of shock, her gaze fixed on the dead Russian. She sure seemed stoned to me.
“Christ. Like this is what we need, some trippin’ stoner. We can’t leave her here.”
“We don’t have a choice. We need to go after those girls,” I told him, moving off into the woods before he could stop me. I got about ten feet in when I was suddenly blinded by a bright orange flash and was hit with horrific, blood-chilling screams –
– And I was running again, this time toward a blossom of flame and the smell of burning gasoline, wet leaves, damp wood… and human flesh. The throat that the raw screams were coming from sounded shredded, vocal cords tattered and painful. I forgot about the tree branches that almost blinded me. I forgot about the icy water that froze my legs, and the mud that gripped my boots. I ran without thought, and the heat came at me in in waves as the first vapors of gasoline burned off. Only gasoline could have burned in woods this wet, and you could feel the steamy heat of the wood it had torched on every exposed pore.
I finally stumbled into a relatively clear space, one arm shielding my face from the heat to see that brush and leaves had been piled around a lone tree. It had been doused in gasoline and its misshapen trunk looked as if it were melting in the fire.
“You’re too late.”
The Russian-accented voice came from beyond the flames, and I pulled my gun up, squinting, scanning for its owner.
“He told us what we needed to know,” the voice spoke again and I found him –
– Josef Markov.
He was standing in the trees, ten yards beyond the fire, smiling grimly. He looked like a Brooklyn hipster that had been on a serious bender. His cheap-looking but expensive clothes were trashed, his three-hundred-dollar haircut looked greasy, and his pasty-white face with its flawless complexion was sickly yellow in the reflected light. Next to him was a shriveled up older guy with a mangy goatee. As I saw his eyes in the yellow light, I recognized him…
The last time I had seen him he had a mangy mustache and thinning hair. Now he was bald, with an overgrown gray goatee. He still had that same squinty-eyed look about him and the same bad teeth, although he’d apparently stopped looking for Swamp Pink and had taken up with the Russians.
I didn’t hesitate this time. I knew what I was dealing with. I pulled the trigger – but the shot went wild as Burke slammed into me from behind and knocked my aim off. Furious, I turned the gun on him, but he just stared me down.
“Are you out of your fuckin’ gourd? You kill Markov’s son, the Russian Mafia will kill you and your whole family,” he said, jittery. “Last time a Markov went missing we had the FBI, CIA and even the Goddamn Soviets up our ass. You do not fuck with these people.”
I looked back to see if Markov was still visible. He wasn’t. Neither was the Mangy Goatee Guy. I emptied my Glock in their general direction anyway. Fuck the Russian Mafia and fuck guys with goatees.
“You let him get away,” I said, turning on Burke. He wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at the fire as Kat arrived, breathing heavily, her eyes also transfixed by the flames.
“Kill…” she said quietly, making the sign of the cross out of some long-buried reflex. I followed her gaze, hearing something beneath the crackle of the flames, smelling something that made my stomach contract with an acidic spasm. Staring at the tree, it took me a moment to realize that the trunk wasn’t misshapen…
…No. The tree was tall and straight. The thing that was misshapen was the teen boy that was bound to it, his skin already blackened and charred, his hair singed and melting, his face barely recognizable. Anton.
It was the boy from the yacht, I knew it as soon as I saw him. He was moaning in a low, keening, guttural wail because he couldn’t scream any longer. The fire had dried out his throat and lungs, making him gasp desperately for the oxygen flames had stolen. As I stared, I noticed that Anton’s blue eyes were open, the lids having been burned off, and that he was staring at me with a look beyond pain, and beyond hope.
Markov was right. Anton knew it. I was too late.
…But I couldn’t accept that. I pulled off my jacket and slapped at the fire, putting out flames. I kicked at the leaves and branches at the base of the tree he was tied to, burning my hands and singing the hair on my arms. The wet ground helped to put out the worst of it, but the heat was still intense as I got close enough to cut him free. The smell almost made me step back.
The odor of his burned flesh and singed hair seeped in through my mouth. I averted my gaze, but the image of his charred body stayed with me. I looked for somewhere to grab Anton to pull him away from the ash and heat, moving in close enough that I could hear his breath, wheezing in and out. As I did, he formed barely
audible words, struggling to do it in his fractured English.
“They took... Alina,” he rasped. I just nodded, struggling to hold up his weight without digging into his wounds.
“Let me help,” Kat said, moving in close, without hesitation. She put one of his burned arms around her shoulders, ignoring the heat and the bloody ooze that dripped onto her neck. As we carried him away from the tree, he tried to speak again.
“They wanted…” he started to say, but couldn’t get a breath deep enough to finish.
“Don’t talk,” I told him, unable to bear the sound of his voice or the smell of his scorched lungs wafting out with each mangled word.
“It might be his only chance,” Burke commented from ten feet away, keeping his mouth and nose covered. Kat and I laid Anton down on the mossy ground, and for a heartbeat I worried about infection before I came to my senses and realized no bacteria could breed fast enough to kill him. He was going to be dead before the sun came up.
Kat knelt and lifted his head, laying it gently in her lap, stroking Anton’s singed hair, speaking softly.
“Just rest. It’s okay. You can close your eyes and let go…”
Anton seemed to nod, but he couldn’t close his eyes, so he ended up staring at Kat, unfocused for a moment. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath, grabbed her hand in his and coughed, trying to speak again.
“I …told…”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Kat soothed him, trying to smile and keep a brave front for the kid as tears drifted down her cheeks. As she did, I noticed something in Anton’s now opened hand – the one in Kat’s. A crumpled bit of paper. I knelt next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She sighed, thankful for the support.
“You don’t have to do this, Kat. He’s already gone.” Kat glared at me. Daggers. She knew that.